As a tablet having a multilayer structure, tablets having a substantially columnar shape and layers in the columnar direction are known. This type of tablets is manufactured by compression molding from the columnar direction. These tablets are useful as tablets for combination medicament which hold a plurality of drugs in a single tablet, but there is a problem that the shape of the tablet is limited to columnar or the like due to limitation caused by the above-mentioned manufacturing method.
A tablet having such a structure can be used as a scored tablet of the same drug, but application is difficult in view of a difficulty in division caused by difficulty in giving a splitting groove or the limitation on the shape to a column.
As another tablet having a multilayer structure, a core tablet having a core inside the tablet is known, and this is useful as a tablet for combination medicament or a scored tablet, but there is also a problem such as constraint on a thickness of the tablet, complexity of a tableting machine and the like caused by necessity to insert the core. In manufacture of this type of tablets, compression from a different direction is not performed as disclosed in the International Publication No. WO03/026560.
Compression is performed several times in tablet compression in many cases, but this is compression from the same direction, and its major purpose is to increase strength of the tablet after compression molding by expelling air existing between particles.
It is known in general that further compression to the primary compression molded product which might change its shape causes irreversible destruction of the molded product, and compression from a different direction is not carried out. That is, manufacture of a tablet by performing compression molding again to a compression molded product containing those having a multilayer structure from a direction different from the compression direction has not been carried out and thus, a tablet compression machine for that purpose has not been known. Naturally, a transfer board suitable for transferring a primary compression molded product into a mortar of a secondary compression molding machine in a predetermined direction in order to apply secondary compression to the primary compression molded product from a direction different from that of the primary compression has not been known, either.
As a transfer board for a tablet compression machine, a transfer board for manufacturing a core tablet is known.